In an old interpretation of the Biblical story of Adam and Eve, Adam was not created as a man but as a hermaphroditic being, of undifferentiated perfection, who was then split by God into male and female.
Love is the reunion of the separated pair that springs from a recognition of identity in the other.
Conjoinment reestablishes the initial perfection.
The marriage ring symbolizes that unity. Together, both people form one completed circle. They become two aspects of the same being1. The two become one.
Who knew the Bible could be so romantic?
meeting your lobster
Dates are difficult. Short, high-pressure, awkward, artificial encounters where both people project an image of what they think an attractive version of themselves should be like.
Meeting people in other contexts is more fruitful.
To find someone I click with (romantic or not), what has often worked best is engaging in environments where I bump into a bunch of different people. Having a broad random-interaction-surface-area. Until something comes easily. Until something… clicks. Where the other person shares the same wavelength, where we skip small talk and delve into meaningful conversation, where we both think “wow, this person really gets me”. The connection is natural, instant, and true.
There are times I’ve felt more deeply connected with someone in minutes upon meeting than I’ve felt with other people I’ve known for years.
From a statistical perspective, a date is a big bet with a binary outcome. It’s also one bet. A lot of dates are likely needed, meaning a lot of effort and tedium and loss. But engaging in a bunch of smaller bets, like talking with a broad set of people in a friendly social environment, provides a higher volume of independent interactions, meeting way more people in way less time. A way to “test the waters” for compatibility before committing a Friday night, perhaps2.
I’ve been in two long-term relationships but never been on a date. I met both girls in shared social settings. When we eventually spent time alone, it didn’t feel like a date because interest was already apparent and there wasn’t any of the forced pretense, awkward pressure or lofty expectation.
Repeated interaction in the same social environment is also important. Familiarity is forged from spending time around a relatively consistent set of people.
If I go to the same yoga class every day (never done it, but anecdotally a great place to meet women), I begin to recognize people. They begin to recognize me. With enough time together in shared space, simply existing alongside each other, it’s no longer weird to interact. Conversation inevitably sparks. It also avoids having to tap someone on the shoulder and suffer a minor but also pretty major heart palpitation and regret ever leaving the house ever.
As I thought about this, it began to make sense why some 50% of married couples meet in college or university. It’s a perfect social container for matchmaking. In school, I had repeated, somewhat random, friendly, and familiar interactions around campus every day. Lots of “bumping into’s”. Lots of gatherings. Lots of meeting friends of friends. Lots of classes and clubs and extracurricular activities where I was forced to talk to people who self-selected the same interests as I did.
But, out of school, I have to create my own social container for these types of interactions.
On meeting people, Simon Sarris writes:
One way to gain these interactions is to do them consciously, like going to a cafe every single day. This is expensive if you treat it as a coffee habit, but very cheap if you understand that it is buy-in for one of the few accessible spheres of public life.
I used to refuse to coffee at home. I went for years to the same cafe every single day. I have met a hundred people by simply going to a cafes every day until the people became familiar, including my wife.
Common interests are a good rule of thumb. Two icebergs that have the same tips are more likely to be similar underneath the blackened arctic water.
I have a rough sense for where people who are like me hang out. A good way to find this out is simply ask: Where do I like to go? Then, go there. Coffee shops or libraries or bookstores or art museums, perhaps.
For example, I’ll never try online dating. Not because it doesn’t work. Not because it’s bad. But because anyone I’m long-term compatible with will likely be as cynical about the digitization of our world as I am and will stubbornly refuse to hand the ancient act of courtship and connection over to an algorithm.
It’s also worth wondering, “Does my environment align with my ambition?”
While not impossible, living on a farm on the outskirts of Thunder Bay or country hopping every couple weeks is less conducive to meeting someone. Fewer interactions in the former. Little repeated interaction in the latter.
Planting roots in a demographically-aligned populated location seems a better bet.
I’ve thought about this in the context of my own life as I seem incapable of remaining in the same country for more than six weeks.
make yourself a magnet
On the drive from North Carolina back to Toronto last summer, a friend put on a dating podcast she listens to as her “trash entertainment”.
The guest was some 30-year old LA screenwriter, who definitely wears aviators, named PJ or JP or something, talking about how he borderline deceives women on the weekly to get them into his bed. When the host, a married woman, asked him what it would take for him to settle down, he replied “I’d have to meet an angel”. Beautiful, kind, charitable, loving. The incarnate of female perfection. But… no angel is going to be attracted to the bloody devil.
As obvious as it sounds, to attract the person I want to attract, I need to become the type of person that could even attract that type of person.
As the late Charlie Munger said, “To find a worthy mate, be worthy of a worthy mate.”
“god’s plan - drake” - God
Past living in public spaces and making my values as good as they can be, meeting “the one” is out of my hands. The force that brings people together is mysterious. Call it fate, call it the workings of the universe, call it luck, call it God.
The start of each relationship I’ve been in came completely unexpected and ensued effortlessly, as if I had little say in the matter.
I’m dubious there’s a way to “make it happen” on a fixed schedule. But some things make it harder. Like never leaving the house, or complaining all the time, or drinking until the hippocampus shuts down.
It comes to a point where I glue myself shut and decide I’ll definitely die alone in a cabin in the woods but maybe I’ll get a German Shepherd and I’ll cook two of everything so we can eat together and at least have someone to talk to3.
It comes to a point where it seems like it will never happen… and that’s when it does.
the meeting of the eyes
So through the eyes love attains the heart:
For the eyes are the scouts of the heart,
And the eyes go reconnoitering
For what it would please the heart to possess.
…
For as all true lovers
Know, love is perfect kindness,
Which is born -- there is no doubt -- from the heart and eyes.
The eyes make it blossom; the heart matures it:
Love, which is the fruit of their very seed.
– Guiraut de Borneilh (1138-1200)
The medieval troubadours were the first people to challenge the idea of love as a socially-approved, parentally-arranged construct and pursue romantic, individual love. Love that comes in through the eyes and sinks deep into the heart. Love that the troubadours were willing to risk death for4.
When Joseph Campbell was asked, “How does one choose the right person?” his reply was swift and steadfast: “Your heart tells you. It ought to.”
There’s a flash in the meeting of the eyes. Where seconds trickle like shallow rivers in the first thaw of Spring. Where each person freezes in recognition of their soul’s silhouette. Struck by the sense they already know them5. Something deep and intuitive and primal says, this is the one.
Jane Austen believed in what Plato termed “heavenly love”. That which is eternal and constant. That which does not fade with separation nor time. Stubborn love, perhaps. Not that everyone finds it, but that it can be found6.
With the right person, there is heaven in their eyes. A vision of future paradise. Salvation through service and sacrifice.
When the right person comes along, I think I will know. It will be easy. It will be obvious. To both of us. The deep knowing of our shared future will manifest in that moment. All in the meeting of the eyes.
My heart will tell me they are “the one”7.
P.s. i am now officially a dating coach accepting clients for big $$$ bucks. although i’m single and young and know nothing about life it’s in my twitter bio so it’s officially official and i really need the money lol so don’t ask questions.
Thank you Becky Isjwara and especially Haley Brengartner for your eyes on early versions of this piece.
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👋 what i’ve been up to:
Writing, reading, working, and enjoying the holiday cheer in the few weeks I’m home. Homemade hot chocolate, handmade raisin scones, fresh baked bread, apple crisp. I also sourced eggs from a local farmer, 10/10 would recommend.
Returning to fiction after a few months of only nonfiction I’m reminded what a nourishing, protective, absorbing world a book can create. I’m reading The Illiad in the afternoons and The Overstory by Richard Powers in the evenings (or if I wake up in the night). Both are exceptional.
Saturday I’m going to The Nutcracker from the National Ballet of Canada and we’re cutting a Christmas tree down Sunday.
✍️ quote i’m pondering:
Hungarian author Arthur Koestler on full creative expression:
“Language can become a screen which stands between the thinker and reality. This is the reason why true creativity often starts where language ends.”
❓ question i’m asking:
Does wind make a sound?
📸 photo of the week:
Thank you for reading!
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You got all my love,
Tommy
I think engaged couples would be better off if they focused more on the symbolism and ritual of a wedding ring and less on the diamonds and carats.
This same “small bet, wide surface area” ideology also applies to business ideas, venture capital, book publishing, and much more.
I can’t help my NK references. Sue me…
Individual love is now taken for granted. So ubiquitous and universally celebrated in Western Culture we’re blind to the fact there are other fashions of love.
If you want to get even more mystical (which I’m totally game for), they are the person you’ve been intertwined with since the dawn of time, coming together, again and again, throughout the millennia, until separation by death. This lends explanation to the phenomena of meeting someone and feeling like you already know them. Perhaps you already did…
In feedback, Haley asked me if I think that there is only one person for each of us. Yes… and no. Objectively, there is likely a handful of people who you are highly compatible with and could build a very happy life together. But, once you commit to one person, you won’t be able to envision existence without them. They’re the only one.
None of this is to presuppose that there is a right person out there waiting for you to find them and when you do, you’ll suddenly be in a great relationship. Great relationships are not lying around latent. Great relationships are built, co-created, and take A LOT of continual daily effort and selflessness and sacrifice. Love is an action that creates a feeling, more than a feeling that spurs action. Yet, I do believe, with attention and awareness, you can find someone who makes the effort feel sacred, “on fire, with the same force that made the stars”.
Can you co-exist in harmony in the kitchen and the bathroom? That's the real test of having found the one.
I’ll spoil it all for you now: You are the right person. You are the one you are waiting for. You won’t just know. You’ll doubt and grow. Doubt and grow. Doubt and grow...